The head of a new not-for-profit investigative news organization that will pitch stories to newspapers acknowledges it will be an uphill struggle – but is confident it’ll be a winning one.

“I’ve talked directly or indirectly to seven or eight news organizations and they all said they’d be willing to take a look,” said Paul Steiger, 65, the former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. “If they want to test our sourcing or our background, we’d play with that and engage in the process.”

The new venture for Steiger and Dick Tofel, a one-time assistant to the Journal’s publisher, is called Pro Publica, an investigative-journalism operation that can offer stories to major news outlets at no charge.

Pro Publica is launching with at least $10 million in seed money donated by Herbert and Marion Sandler, former CEOs of Golden West Financial and big Democratic Party supporters.

Other donors include Charles Feeney, the founder of airport duty-free shops, the Jeht Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Steiger will formally cut his ties with parent Dow Jones by the end of the year, and said he hopes to have hired about 24 full-time investigative journalists by then.